What Team USA's Olympics uniforms could tell us about Nike's impending NBA takeover

When the NBA stars of Team USA take the court in Rio de Janeiro for Sunday's Olympics gold medal game against Serbia, they'll be wearing plastic bottles. Plastic bottles that have been steam-blasted, chopped into tiny pieces, melted, then turned into thread that is turned into yarn — but plastic bottles, nonetheless.

The recycled material is made by Nike, which produces the U.S. Olympic Team's basketball uniforms. Next year, Nike becomes the NBA's official apparel provider, taking over the plum marketing perch from Adidas after striking an eight-year, $1 billion deal with the league last summer. When the 2017-18 season starts, Nike's famous logo will appear on NBA jerseys for the first time.

For basketball obsessives, this matters. It's a big deal. The company that has made itself synonymous with basketball is lining up alongside the world's greatest league. So what could the future hold in store?

To learn more about Team USA's unis — and glean hints of what they might foretell about the duds your favorite NBA squad will be wearing when the 2017 season tips off — we spoke with Michelle Miller, who bears the title of Olympic Senior Concept Director at Nike.

Sweat mapping and looking ahead

DeAndre Jordan deploys for the dunk against Spain.

Image: Garrett Ellwood/NBAE via Getty Images

"What we always do when working on big projects is start with input from the athletes," says Miller, whose role during the basketball uniform process was to coordinate and direct teams on everything from technological innovation to coloration.

That input delivered two clear takeaways: Breathability and mobility are primary concerns for basketball players when it comes to on-court clothing.

Nike's Oregon headquarters houses the company's Sport Research Lab. There, sweat-mapping studies were performed to determine where and how basketball players sweat most profusely to inform how to design the 2016 Olympics unis.

As we spoke by phone, Team USA, decked out in its Nike kits, was in the fourth quarter of an 82-76 win over Spain in the Olympics semifinals.

"They get these athletes heated up, then they're able to look at the heat ratings from their bodies and where they sweat," Miller explains of the sweat-mapping process. "Then they take these sweat maps from many, many people and create an aggregate map to see the common areas where players sweat most."

One area of emphasis that emerged was the chest, where Miller says designers sought to create a feeling of "air flowing through the jersey." Another more readily visible result can be found lower on the body. Vents on the shorts — indentations in the hemline common on basketball bottoms — are moved slightly forward to increase mobility and air flow.

Nice of DeMarcus Cousins to give us a prime look at the air vent placement on Team USA's shorts.

Image: Jesse D. Garrabrant/NBAE via Getty Images

Nike says this year's Olympics uniforms are 51 percent lighter and 35 percent more breathable than the kits worn in 2008, which it also designed.

As for what Nike's debut NBA uniforms when the 2017-18 season begins, Miller didn't offer specifics. But he did say Team USA's kits in 2016 are a "really strong drafting point" for where the company is headed with basketball gear.

The curious case of the sleeved jersey

Harrison Barnes takes aim for Team USA.

Image: Gary Dineen/NBAE via Getty Images

Among fans, the most controversial part of Adidas' partnership with the NBA since 2006 has been the sleeved jerseys the company introduced in 2013.

Adidas reps said the move was intended to to create a product that was more wearable for fans off the court than a normal sleeveless jersey, but the break from tradition has been widely mocked. NBA squads wear them on the court several times per season.

Might we see something similar from Nike?

Barnes modeling the sleeved look with the Golden State Warriors.

Image: Rocky Widner/NBAE via Getty Images

Miller can't definitively say. But she did say the company uses "athletes' choice" to inform its decisions and that "what we hear is the athletes really like the jerseys they've been wearing, which is to say, shirts sans sleeves.

Nike also designs the kits for the U.S. women's basketball teams, and this year's edition comes with a twist. Players can choose between tops with standard or enlarged armholes, and between shorts with traditional or raised waistbands. Miller says Nike's male athletes haven't expressed their own desire for fit options, but that a similar setup for men's basketball isn't impossible to imagine.

On this year's kits, meanwhile, small details server the larger goal. Laser-perforated numbers eliminate the need for numbers applied to the material, which can be cumbersome even by the most microscopic of measurements. On the back hip area of the shorts are small strips of velvet-like flocking meant to provide a space for players to wipe sweat from their hands.

As for the plastic bottles sacrificed to make the uniforms, that feature was implemented in 2012 ,yet it continues to represent another slick innovation. Bottles are processed into a recycled material comprising 96 percent of the body of this year's kits. Nike since 2010 has also used that process to make soccer jerseys. And a rep says the company has so far saved 3 billion plastic bottles.

With a win over Serbia in Sunday's Olympics final, the NBA stars of Team USA can turn plastic into gold.

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